Editorial: The gifts Romney says we get

Apparently not content with the hard lessons of his "47 percent" claim during the presidential campaign - not to mention his loss two weeks ago to President Barack Obama - Mitt Romney last week was back to blaming his situation on a rather lazy, entitled population.

During the campaign, Romney found himself walking a tightrope he strung for himself when he told supporters at a fundraising event: "There are 47 percent who are with (Obama), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. ... And they will vote for this president no matter what."

No matter how he tried to spin that sentiment during the campaign, the sour taste in the mouths of all of those so-called victims was hard to shake.

Last week in a conference call to supporters, Romney chalked up the GOP loss to Obama's use of the "old playbook" of offering "gifts" to key pools of constituents.

"In each case, they were very generous in what they gave to those groups," Romney said. Specifically, he described a gift bag of health care, free contraceptives and college loan interest forgiveness to butter up certain voting blocs - "especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people."

Romney's underlying message: How could he compete against that?

The underlying blowback, at least from some of his fellow party members still stewing over the 47 percent mindset: How could Romney still be trotting this out?

Reaction at last week's Republican Governors Association meeting ranged from "inappropriate" to "not true." Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal went one better in what amounted to a shot across the tin-eared bow of his party.

"If you want voters to like you, the first thing you've got to do is to like them first," Jindal told CNN. "And it's certainly not helpful to tell voters that you think their votes were bought. That's certainly not a way to show them you respect them, you like them."

Often the best thing to do after a presidential loss is to work your way back from the platform for a while. Decompress. Let others do the talking. Romney might give that a shot at this point. He's entitled to that much.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

Editorial: The gifts Romney says we get

Apparently not content with the hard lessons of his '47 percent' claim during the presidential campaign ? not to mention his loss two weeks ago to President Barack Obama ? Mitt Romney last week was